Please be reminded that the photos are not alterred so you can copy them and try working them in your photography software to read them better. Please give me credit for the photo and provide a link to this blog.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

In the next posts I will present the photographs of some of the tombstones that I took back in April of 2003. This is not going to be a complete set of photos. I was traveling and didn't have time to spend formally documenting this cemetery. Please keep this in mind. I gave you publications suggestions for this cemetery in a previous post so that should help you to see if there are any burials that are of interest to you.

Please note that I took these photos and have uploaded them here without altering them in any way so that you can take the photo and study it further or make copies to try and read it yourself. Please give me credit for the work I have done by putting a link back to this blog on the pictures you take.

I would like to start with photos of the burials under the surname of Merrifield:

Notice in the above photo that the tombstones are gathered against the tree. It means there is a disconnect with the burial location of this person in the cemetery. There are depressions in the ground where a grave is located but the stones are not with the grave but placed under trees in various areas of the cemetery. Not all of the stones are in this condition.

There were pieces of broken tombstones as you see in the photo below to the left of the pieced together tombstone that are probably from another tombstone. I struggled to not touch the tombstones and do any rearranging for I do not live in the area and I was hoping that others would take on the job of cleaning up this cemetery.

Bertie Merrifield, d 8 Aug 1870 age 9m9d

Probably Margaret J. Merrifield,
d. August 20, 1852 age 20 yr5m8d

Infant children of R.M. & R.D., no dates

According to Ms. Lillie and Mrs. Sanchez these are the 4 tombstones that are under the surname of Merrifield as listed in their publications. I feel that the stone for Seraphina Isador is closer to the correct name and owner of the stone.

3) I find that the US Genweb sites can be helpful for a location and might have records for cemeteries in the area of your interest. US Genweb site: http://usgenweb.org/ http://www.usgenweb.org/

4) On my visit in April of 2003 to Iowa, I asked one of the volunteers at the Iowa County Genealogical Society for a location and a description of how to get to the Titler Cemetery. It is always helpful to get additional information from those who live in the area about the location of a cemetery especially if it is small.

The Iowa County Genealogical society used to be in the basement of the Marengo Public Library which apparently remodeled in 2007. So they have moved their library and holdings to the town of New English.

9) USGS Board on Geographic Names: http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/
This website is helpful in giving a listing of cemeteries in a location or one specific cemetery. You click on Search Domestic Names and it gives a list with location, longitude and lattitude etc. Then it gives you map choices for locating the cemetery. Experiment with different names and types of feature classes like: Cemeteries, Churches or more. I did a search for cemeteries in Iowa County, Iowa and it came back with 63 cemeteries. They do not have everything but it is a good start if you are having trouble finding cemeteries.

10) Using GPS to find a cemetery is now within the reach of genealogists. I am not savy on this topic so here is a link to an article on how to use it in your search at About:

Things to Ponder!

The header photo is of the Lee Cemetery in Hardin Co., Ohio southeast of Kenton, Ohio.

As of today 8/12/2016 Google has closed down Picasa for Photos. They moved them to Google Photos and Google Photo Archive. If there are any problem with my photos from this blog give me a holler and I will check it out. When posting in Blogger the photos went into Picasa for safekeeping it doesn't work that way at Wordpress. I did not move BJM Cemeteries to Wordpress so this is why I am concerned. So far so Good. Thanks. Let me know if there is a problem with any of the photos. Thanks.

As a member of Find A Grave I have been adding photos and memorials and getting some transferred to me and trying to spend a couple hours each week adding to the website. Scroll to the bottom of this blog and you will find a link to my contributions on Find A Grave.

Here are my tips:

I find Find A Grave is really good for finding tombstones and memorials for those buried in the USA. Canada is making progress in adding to Find A Grave but you also have to go to other websites in your search. These websites are the Canadian Headstones.com, OCFA - Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid, the Canadian Gen Webs Cemetery project are few places to look. Each province may have a way to locate cemeteries. Hopefully I have identified these websites in my posts but be aware they do change their urls.